Thursday, January 24, 2013

Pin 79 Homemade Laundry "Sauce", Easy Super Concentrated Detergent

Now you might ask why would I make another "recipe" for Homemade Laundry Detergent so soon after I just made the "no-grate" laundry detergent, well the truth of the matter is that I just couldn't help myself. When looking for recipes I had decided on the Sauce and the No-Grate, and thought it would fun to compare. Yes, yes indeed, I just used the word fun relating to laundry! I promise I'm not crazy, and laundry is by no means my favorite chore, with 6 kids (multiple involved in sports) an Army husband, 2 dogs & 2 cats, laundry piles up every minute. Trying out new things in the laundry helps at least keep it a little more interesting.

I was intrigued by the fact that this is a laundry sauce, not a true liquid. I was drawn to the idea that it didn't fill a big 5 gallon bucket. It fits in two, 1 quart mason jars or into a Tupperware container that can fit on your shelf. I opted to put mine in a Tupperware container because it is thick and I didn't want to get it all over my hands when I got to the bottom of the jar.

I didn't take super detailed pictures of the creating process, because the folks over at Budget 101 have a super detailed tutorial along with pictures of every step. It's really simple, and it didn't take me long to make at all.

Gather everything you need. Ignore all the extras in the picture (we'll consider this my "stock" photo of my laundry supplies)

First thing your going to do is put 4 C of water in a saucepan and bring it to a slight boil. While your water is heating up your going to grate your bar of soap. This is where things can get tricky. Some people like to cut the bar into chunks and use their food processor to do the rest, others have put in through their salad shooter. I personally have come to like putting the bar of soap in the microwave. I put it in a Ziploc bag (not sealed) and heat in 30 second increments. Your bar will start to foam and crack, once this happens it becomes easy to break. I took my bag out of the microwave, let it cool for a few minutes, then sealed the bag. Once the bag is sealed and you have gotten the air out of the bag you can use a rolling pin, hammer or any other means to "beat" the bar of soap. Because it's been dried out in the microwave it usually crumbles pretty quickly.

Add your soap to the boiling water and stir. You will have to stir pretty constantly to keep the soap and water from boiling over. It took me about 10 minutes to completely melt the soap. Once this is done remove it from the heat.

Stir in your 1 C of Borax and 1 C of Washing Powder. I had to stir for about 4-5 minutes. Stir it till you no longer feel like there is sand on the bottom of your bottom pan. Washing Soda is a lot more coarse then baking soda and takes longer to melt and blend.

Once I decided against using glass jars I realized I needed another method to figure out how much water I needed to add in the next step. It took a little math. There are 4C in 1quart. You were supposed to pour your liquid into 2, 1 quart jars evenly. That would be about 2 C in each jar, so to fill your jar you would be adding around 2C more of water. So to add water to my whole batch without separating into jars I needed to add 4 C of water. Could you follow that? Lol, I had trouble just writing it (too early in the morning!) So add 4 C of water and stir it in. Then just let your mixture cool a bit.

Mine didn't take long to cool at all because I threw mine out on the deck for a few minutes.The freezing temps we are having might have something to do with that. Now you can see that it looks weird, it is separating and looking slightly grainy, don't sweat it. We are going to take care of that in the next step.

You can use a blender, immersion blender, or a mixer, whatever is the easiest for you. I used my immersion blender.

Just mix up your detergent. I mixed mine for about 3 minutes. It should start to look like a pudding texture. It's really weird when you remember this is going in your laundry.....

I just threw mine in some extra Tupperware containers. I have a front load HE machine. This recipe is a low suds recipe and is safe to use. The thing to remember is you only use 1Tablespoon per load and you do NOT put it in the detergent dispenser, but directly into the drum. It is too thick to go through dispenser properly.

So far I have used this in 6 loads of laundry, and it has worked just fine. I haven't noticed any difference between this and any of the commercial detergents I have used. I do like this slightly better then the no grate. I don't know that it ACTUALLY does a better job, but it just feels like it must do a better job since it's so thick!

This recipe supposedly makes enough to wash 128 loads. I paid about $1.00 for my bar of soap, but I can't tell you the price of my borax and washing soda, since they are the same boxes that I have had for about a year now, and have used to make various cleaning recipes.

If you are wanting to try a homemade detergent, I definitely recommend this one!

*I am by no means an expert in anything, so use caution when trying any new cleaning recipe. I can only share my experiences.

11 comments:

THANKS SO MUCH FOR PUTTING THIS UP. I JUST STARTED MAKING HOMEMADE HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS AND I AM TRYING MANY. I WILL BE ADDING THIS ONE TO MY LIST AND I LOVE THE FACT THAT ITS A SPACE SAVER. THANKS AGAIN!!

I was just wondering if you have noticed any difference in your whites? I am very interested in making this and have read it is much better than other laundry soap recipes. Yet I read that homemade laundry soaps tend to leave your whites greyish after time. Did this happen to you or did your whites still stay white?

Whipped up a batch this afternoon. I have been using the multi gallon recipe but had seen a glimpse of this and thought it would be soo much more convenient and take up considerably less space! It was a lot easier and faster. I found two big 1/2 gallon nut jars (basic ingredient in Hubby's personal munchie mix) the mouth is very wide and should be user friendly to dipping up a tablespoon of laundry creme. I already use this recipe so I don't see how I won't love the luxury of this compact version.

Thankyou for sharing. This has to be the most simplest recipe and the way you did suits me better. The first time I tipped my jars upside down (as directed in another recipe) the liquid burst out and burned my hand. So your way is much safer. As for special treatment of blender I just washed mine. After all, we only made soap with it and we use soap to wash our dishes! Will be adding your blog to my favourites. I live in New Zealand by the way.

I made laundry soap in the big 5 gallon bucket and did not like the consistency so I melted a bar of Fels Naphtha in 3 cups of water and then added 2 1/2 cups of my homemade clumpy soap that contained the borax, washing soda and Ivory soap. I melted it all down on the stove and then let it cool for 2 hours. The top became solid and the bottom was still more watery. I blended it with my hand mixer and it worked !! I have nice smooth laundry sauce !! Put it in a pretty jar and only need one spoon full. I have a ton left and now all I have to do is buy a bar of Fels naphtha only $1.29 to turn the rest of my large batch of white clumpy detergent into the good stuff !! It should last me a long time and it cleans and smells great :)

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I know I pin a lot of things in Pinterest, well now I'm trying them out. Each day I'm going to try (well almost everyday!) out a new pin and let you all know how it goes and review some pins from the past as well. Happy Pinning Everyone!